Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

I have been a huge fan of the Yakuza series, if you have read this blog in the last 8 years, you will see that I push the franchise quite a bit. Sadly the general public is finally getting addicted tot he franchise, ever since SEGA brought over Yakuza 0. It seems whatever the new team at SEGA is doing to promote Yakuza games, its actually working because against all odds Yakuza 6: The Song of Life has been charting in pal regions.

Seeing the new charts over on ResetEra, Yakuza 6 went from the 3rd best selling game in United Kingdom down to 39th. While its a big drop, its a lot better to chart than to never have charted at all. Over in France, Yakuza 6 is the 5th selling game only being outsold by three different God of War versions (SKUs) and Far Cry 5! The game also came in 3rd in Italy and 7th in Denmark! Sadly didn’t chart in Germany. What’s wrong with them?

Seeing that Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night and Persona 5: Dancing Star Night release next month over in the land of the rising son, its weird that SEGA will finally make a poll asking fans what franchise should get cross over outfits for these Persona Dance games. I will assume that SEGA already approved the outfits a long time ago and this is just a way to get fans excited.

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life releases in just a few weeks, on April 17th to be exact, for the PlayStation 4. The game will release with three options: a Standard Edition, an Essence of Art Edition, and (in my opinion) the must have After Hours Premium Edition. To promote this very special release, SEGA has created an unboxing hosted by Marketing Associate Lauren and Associate PR Manager Jonathon. Get a sneak peek at the hardcover art book, two bar glasses, 2 ice stones, 2 coasters, and the collectible outer box.

Which edition are you picking up? If you’re getting the After Hours Premium Edition, what are you planning to drink?

Last weekend, SEGA opened their Yakuza 6: The Song of Life “Essence of Art” Exhibit at Gallery Nucleus in Los Angeles. While the event looked like a blast, it was missing our presence as well as the presence of countless Yakuza fans from across the globe. Thankfully, SEGA has bottled up the experience in two videos giving a recap of the event (above) and presenting the full live art and Q&A stream (after the break).

The Yakuza 6: The Song of Life “Essence of Art” Exhibit runs from March 17, 2018 – April 1, 2018 at Gallery Nucleus at 210 East Main St., Alhambra, CA 91801. The gallery is open from 12:00PM – 8:00PM, Tuesday – Sunday and is open to the public with free admission. More details are available at the official event page.

Like we covered before, the demo weighs in at over 36 GB because you are technically downloading the full game but its being locked down to a certain point. If you like the game, you can buy it digitally and unlock the full game, no more downloading required. Not only that, you can continue the game right where the demo leaves off. You can also check out my review for Yakuza 6, as you can see I really liked it.

The Yakuza franchise has been one of SEGA’s longest running franchise since they went 3rd party and Yakuza 6 celebrates a new beginning and an end to the franchise. For one this title sports a brand new, high budget engine created from the ground up for the PlayStation 4 and on the other hand this game is meant to be the last game starring the franchise’s protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu.

But did SEGA deliver in a true next-generation experience with Yakuza 6: The Song of Life? Find out with our review.

[Update: Have confirmed that there was no exploit, SEGA just uploaded the full game onto PSN instead of a demo. Way to go!]

Oops, if you read our story about the Yakuza 6 demo coming to PSN today and happen to be wondering why it isn’t showing up on the in-game store, now we know. According to Destructoid, the game unlocked the full version (for free) when downloaded. According to Destructoid (and SEGA) people used an exploit and according to other users on twitter it was never locked down (seems doubtful). If you didn’t know the demo weighed in at more than 36GB, of course this mean’t the demo was the full version of the game locked down as a ‘trial’. Once you purchased the full game come April, it would unlock the full game without re-downloading the data. SEGA posted on their Facebook about pulling the demo but didn’t go into detail.

This also puts into question why SEGA would delay Yakuza 6: The Song of Life from March to April, if the game is translated and playable already. Some people think that maybe SEGA had manufacturing issues with the physical copies of the game that lead them to delay it so everyone gets the game day one. Maybe they thought it would sell better if it was delayed, though this doesn’t make sense considering Sony’s God of War is also launching in April. But it seems that some people have unlocked the full game already, thanks to this exploit and are enjoying it for free. What are your thoughts? Did SEGA screw this up?

The Yakuza 6: The Song of Life demo is hitting PSN on February 27, 2018 and since some regions are ahead of us due to timezones, they can already try out the demo. For example, the English demo has now hit the Australian PlayStation Store revealing that the demo will be 36.53 GB in size! Yeah, its a big one.

So what is in this demo? The Yakuza 6: The Song of Life demo is a prologue. This lets you go through the intro segment where they teach you the basics in controls, what Kazuma Kiryu is doing now and why he is taking care of Haruka’s son, Haruto. Also your save data from this demo will carry over to the full game when it comes out April 17, 2018. This demo is basically the same one they released for the Japanese release.

So what do you think? Too big? Are you picking the demo up to give Yakuza 6: The Song of Life a early look?

We have good news and bad news. The good news is SEGA will be releasing a demo for Yakuza 6: The Song of Life on February 27th. The demo will allow players to bring their save into the full game upon release, so you can start your adventure early. The bad news is that the game will be delayed a month, releasing April 17, 2018. The move was cited as a tough business decision, but claims this gives more time to line things up for launch. The change puts Yakuza 6 4 days away from God of War, which some fear will hurt sales. However I personally think Yakuza has enough of a dedicated fanbase and the games are different enough that it really won’t be a big deal. Plus, does God of War have a premium edition that comes with drinking acoutrama?